Go to the Map
of
the Route of the June, 1950 expedition into the
Rub al Khali desert.Go to the group
photo (with names) of Flight 'D' personnel.

The aircraft of Flight 'D',
7th ARS. Two SB-17Gs, one with an A1 airborne
droppable life boat attached, and the float-mounted
H-SH helicopter. An almost daily sand storm is
just developing.

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Flight 'D' land rescue
vehicles at the northern edge of the Rub Al Khali
desert. The 4x4 Dodge ambulance has a flat
tire. The 6x6 Diamond T truck on the left
carriers 800-gallon of truck gas, spare parts,
maintenance tools and equipment. The other 6x6
carries 500-gallons of water, food and communication
equipment.

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An Arab woman and her desert
vehicles at an oasis near the Kuwait border.
Out of the photo, to the left, her Arab husband was
very upset and demanded we not talk to her and take
no photos. They believed once their image was
trapped in the camera box Allah would no longer
protect them. The husband was quickly
unwrapping a muzzle loading rifle with a very large
bore as we hurriedly drove away.

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The 6x6 land rescue truck
breaks through a hard sun-baked crust into a
quagmire that starts to harden like concrete when
the air gets to the mud-like mixture.We used the other 6x6 in our
effort to pull this truck out of trouble.

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Talk about problems!We are now down to our
relatively light weight 4x4 ambulance to get both
trucks out of a serious predicament.It took more than 10 hours of
back breaking work to extricate the large land
rescue vehicles.

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The ruins of a village at the
oasis of Wahat Jabrin, 200-miles South of Dhahran,
decimated by malaria in the mid-18008. The oasis,
about 50-acres in size, wad uninhabited except for
the King's official caretaker. it contained numerous
deep wells, date palms and rotted vegetation many
feet deep.

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The Arab caretaker's but at
Wahat Jabrin. A land rescue team member sits in the
entrance. We were treated to scalding hot tea brewed
in a very ornate cooper and brass teapot.We also suffered numerous
insect bites sitting in this home.

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The author takes a shower
following the fireplace problem at Jabrin. It took a
lot of boiling water to kill many parasites present
in the oasis well water.

The author and a desert
fox. The fox was food for about one-third of
the ticks, lice, fleas and other vermin in the
desert. The other two-thirds were on the two
foxes we captured and used in our evaluations on
desert survival, one of the major tasks of Flight
'D.'

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The cooking fire that nearly
caused serious damage to the oasis, igniting the
rotted underground vegetation. It required
much effort to extinguish the fire.

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One of our tasks on these
"field trips" was to provide training for
para-rescue teams from Dhahran. Here I am
prentending to be a downed pilot and attended to
by PJs from the squadron who parachuted in from
one of our SB-17Gs.*********************************************

Parallel rows of sand dunes
called ERKS, a major terrain obstacle found in the
Rub Al Khali Desert. Many hours were expended
getting our land rescue vehicles up and down these
sand dunes.

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A SB-17G resupplies the land
rescue team by parachute. This was the easy
part of the job.

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On occasion, landings could
be made in the large gravel plain areas to the
north of the Rub Al Khali desert.
The 6x6 truck takes on a load of gas from the bomb
bay tank of the SB-17G.

Flight 'D' H-5H,
92001. Capt. Mosier and SSgt Davis flying at
night, in a severe sand storm and taxiing about in
shark infested waters, rescued the pitifully few
survivors of two DC-4 aircraft which crashed
during the sand storm into the Persian Gulf.

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Some members of Flight 'D'
land rescue team pose with some SB-17G aircrew
members (in white t-shirts) during resupply
efforts in the Abu-Babr gravel plain of Saudi
Arabia. Saudi Army Liaison Officer,
Lt. Hakim, wearing a sergeant fatigue
jacket, is at the extreme left of the group.
The author is standing, 3rd from left.

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The USNS PECOS in the
Arabian Sea. The small life boat is bringing
an injured sailor for an evacuation flight on
SA16A, 49-075. The sea looks deceivingly
calm, but in fact very large swells made landing
and take-off very hazardous.

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Transferring the injured
sailor from the bulky life boat via rubber raft to
the SA-16A for the flight back to Dhahran.The author is in the raft, on
the left.

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Back at Dhahran, here's a
typical day on Main Street in the Enlisted
Quarters area!